


Epic Romance as Told By Dwarven Princes

by Kereea



Series: Afterlife Adventures [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Afterlife, Brotherly Love, Canonical Character Death, Epilogue, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:43:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1213144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereea/pseuds/Kereea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo Baggins has sailed across the sea and somehow acquired two chatty dwarves who call him cousin and are all too eager to gossip about their “mutual” uncles. Frodo wonders if he’ll maintain his sanity until Bilbo returns from wherever he’s gone-<br/>“Oh, relax, once he and Uncle are done snogging, they’ll explain it their way!”<br/>At this rate, probably not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epic Romance as Told By Dwarven Princes

“Oh you’re finally here!”

“He’s adorable, isn’t he, Fili?”

“Dreadfully so, Kili. Wouldn’t have believed he’d be the one to destroy the Ring if I hadn’t seen it.”

“Well he is related to Bilbo. Must be a Baggins thing.”

“I thought the Baggins was his stuffy side?”

“Beats me, then. I still don’t understand hobbits, Fee.”

“Who are you?” Frodo yelped, jumping to his feet and stumbling back from the two dwarves who were pondering him like some particularly puzzling animal.

“Don’t you remember?” the blonde dwarf asked. “You and Bilbo set sail for Valinor and well, here you are!”

“Sort of. Undying Lands and Land of the Dead can cross up a bit when ringbearers are involved, or so I’m told,” the brunette noted.

“By whom?” the blonde asked him.

“Well _Tauriel_ , who else?”

“And from where did she know it?” The blonde did not look impressed.

“Some elf lord. El-something?”

“Lord Elrond?” Frodo asked slowly.

“Ah, see, he knows!” the brunette said brightly. “Remember Elrond, Fee? We messed up his fountains!”

“I know _he_ wouldn’t forget,” the other dwarf snickered.

“Wait, wait…you’re dead dwarves.”                  

“Well, yes,” the blonde said.

“Named…Kili and Fili…”

“It’s _Fili and Kili_ , I’m first,” Fili protested. “I’m older, after all.”

“Well I got _here_ first,” Kili muttered.

“Like _that’s_ an accomplishment!” Fili snapped.

“You’re the princes from my uncle’s book!”

“Oh, right, Bilbo wrote it all down, didn’t he?” Kili asked.

“Dreadful rendition if you ask me,” Fili complained. “Didn’t mention our handsomeness one bit.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons,” Frodo drawled. “Wait…where is Bilbo?”

“Well with Uncle Thorin, of course! Haven’t you read the supposed book?” Kili asked.

“Wouldn’t do him any good. Our dashing good looks weren’t the only omission our dear burglar made,” Fili said.

“What do omissions have to do with anything?” Frodo demanded. “I know they were close friends, all right?”

“ _Friends_?” Kili snickered. “Oh poor thing, Bilbo did leave some things out!”

“Well you know what this means, Kee.”

“I do indeed, Fili. We must educate our poor cousin!”

“…We’re not cousins,” Frodo noted.

“Sure we are. Our uncles are probably snogging as we speak, so we share uncles, and thus are cousins,” Fili said. “Or siblings, but really, I can only take having one of those.”

“I’m so sorry I’ve ruined it for you,” Kili said.

“You ought to be,” Fili said imperiously. “Now, Frodo, what do you want to know?”

“…Snogging?” Frodo yelped.

“Oh dear,” Kili sighed.

“Have we broken him already?” Fili wondered.

“ _Mordor_ couldn’t break him, Fee, I’m sure it’s just the hobbit need for things to be proper or something,” Kili said reassuringly.

“All right, all right,” Frodo sighed. “You seem to think our uncles are…involved.”

“We know, little badger,” Fili said.

“If only I just thought it…if only I could _forget_ ,” Kili shuddered. “One’s uncle snogging someone is not something for the eyes of a young dwarf!”

“You did seem quite upset,” Fili consoled.

Frodo groaned and put his head in his hands. The dwarves were talking in circles! As he rubbed his temples he noticed something and pulled his hands directly in front of his face, “I have all my fingers.”

“Well, yes, healing of the and across the sea and all. You don’t see Kili and I riddled with wounds, do you?” Fili asked.

“I have all my fingers,” Frodo repeated, grinning.

“How’s the shoulder?” Kili asked.

“…Fine!” Frodo said, his grin widening. “I feel…actually I feel great!”

He squawked as Kili yelled “Good!” and hauled him into an impossibly tight bear hug.

“Kili, brother dearest, you’re choking our cousin,” Fili said idly. “Kindly let him breathe.”

Kili’s hold relaxed a bit, but Frodo found himself still quite trapped. Kili might not have been as burly as Gimli had been, but he was clearly still very strong.

“Kili, put the hobbit down,” Fili said.

“Nah, I’m keeping him. Get your own.”

“Well since he and Bilbo are the only ones around that’s not happening,” Fili sighed. “…I get him the other half the time?”

“Deal.”

“I’m not a toy!” Frodo said.

“No, you’re our dear little cousin who we sadly never got to cuddle in life,” Kili explained. “We must make up for that!”

“No, you really don’t need to,” Frodo sighed.

“Yes we do,” Kili said. “We were very remiss as your elders, dying so early and not being able to help you with your quest. Very rude of us.”

“…You were _dead_!” Frodo protested. “You didn’t _need_ to do anything!”

“But we should have anyway!” Fili replied. “I mean, do you know what it was like for sixty damn years watching Bilbo fall under the ring’s spell? Uncle was beside himself for decades!”

“And then you had to go to _Mordor_ , cousin. **_Mordor_**. And again, we could only watch!” Kili added. “The _whole_ _time_.”

“Well, you could have…looked away?” Frodo offered weakly.

Fili and Kili looked like they were about to have conniptions. Fili recovered first, “Oh, silly little cousin. We’re not letting you out of our sight. Ever. Your bad luck.”

“We won’t let anything happen to you ever again!” Kili added, squeezing Frodo once more. Thankfully he seemed to have learned his lesson and kept the pressure brief. “We’ll protect you!”

“From what?” Frodo asked dryly.

“…Stuff,” Kili said. “I mean, there’s no trolls or orcs here or anything, but…”

“Just in case!” Fili added. “Can never be too careful!”

“You two are ridiculous,” Frodo huffed, kicking Kili in the knees. “Put me down. Really.”

Kili whined but let Frodo go.

“Thank you,” the ringbearer said, settling between the two princes. “Now. Let me get this straight. This is Valinor?”

“No, this is the land of the dead. Valinor’s…how would one go to Valinor, Kee?” Fili asked.

“Well, Tauriel’s estimate involved a lot of walking west and having permission to get there in the first place,” Kili mused. “I mean, she is an elf. She’s allowed. We’re dwarves, so we’re-”

“Supposed to be in the Hall of the Ancestors, according to Gimli,” Frodo noted.

“Not dwarves who have hobbits to keep track of!” Kili declared. “We’ll show you around the Halls later. But we’ve been here most of the time! Easier to look on the world, well, if you know who to look for.”

“And we were very interested in keeping an eye on our burglar and his nephew,” Fili said sagely.

“Well, really we’re more cousins-”

“He’s your uncle and you’re his nephew,” Fili said. “Makes things easier. Now, any other questions?”

“…Where is Bilbo?”

“With Uncle, of course!” Kili chirped.

“Thorin Oakenshield?”

“Right,” Fili said.

“And you think they are…snogging,” Frodo said.

“ _Know_ , dear cousin,” Kili chimed in.

“…Why?” Frodo asked.

“Okay, let me explain…no, it’s too much. Let me start with a sum-up,” Fili said. “Bilbo left something out of his book. That something is the fact that he and our dear uncle, bless his emotionally-stunted soul, had a bit of a romance going on during our quest.”

“A bit? Fili, that sort of underselling is unlike you,” Kili mocked. “They were very much twitter-pated, dear hobbit cousin.”

“Where did you get _that_ word?” his brother demanded.

“The elven lass who fancies me. You should get one too.”

“No thanks. I like my women to be a reasonable height,” Fili snorted.

“You’re saying Bilbo was…involved…with the King Under the Mountain?” Frodo asked.

“Yes.”

“Very.”

“All right then,” Frodo sighed. “Well…what now?”

“Well now we tell you all about it, of course!” Fili looked quite sure about that.

Frodo looked between the brothers with trepidation, “You really don’t need to.”

“But we want to!” Kili said.

“And someone needs to explain it, goodness knows Bilbo and Thorin would take forever to do so if we left it to them,” Fili said. “Sit, relax. We’re just going to have a friendly chat.”

“Bilbo never wrote you two as being this mad in the book, either,” Frodo grumbled as the three of them settled down in the grass.

“We’re just excited. Ooh, I always wanted a little cousin!” Kili cheered.

“Technically Gimli was our little cousin,” Fili reminded him.

“Well yes, but he doesn’t count. He was nearly my age! Frodo is a proper little cousin!”

“Excuse me?” Frodo demanded. “I’m not that much younger than you—maturity wise I may as well be older!”

“Ah, Kee, look how cute!” Fili teased. “And no, young hobbit, we were both older when we died than you were when you set sail. We’re older. Live with it.”

“Now, as to the epic romance of Thorin Oakenshield and Bilbo Baggins-”

“Epic, Kili? I think you’re overselling it.”

“I am not!” Kili sulked.

“Fine, fine as to their little romance that was so _dreadfully_ left out of your uncle’s telling,” Fili said. “See, Uncle Thorin made an awful first impression upon our burglar.”

“Really?” Frodo asked. The book hadn’t mentioned that.

“Oh yes,” Kili said. “Uncle was just an idiot. Said Mr. Baggins looked more like a grocer than a burglar.”

“…What?” Frodo asked.

“I know!” Kili laughed. “I mean really, worst first impression you can give, yes?”

“Pretty bad,” Frodo admitted.

“Well it only got worse,” Fili sighed. “The trolls happened—read over Bilbo’s shoulder when he was writing, that part was faithful, at least—and then Rivendell-”

“I don’t think Bilbo knew about the fountains,” Kili noted.

“Fountains?”

“Elrond’s fountains. Everyone other than Uncle took a bit of a bath in them. They made great pools,” Kili said. “Elf lord look like he was going to shoot us for it, too.”

“You took baths…in Lord Elrond’s fountains?” Frodo yelped.

“Twas great fun,” Fili smiled. “Anyway, moving on. We hung around in Rivendell for a few days, and Bilbo accidentally set off Uncle by being nice to elves. Bit of a pet peeve of his.Then the Thunder Battle-”

“Might I ask what the stone giants looked like?” Frodo asked. “I always had trouble picturing them.

“Living mountains!” Kili said, throwing his arms up. “One came to life right beneath us as we walked! And then half of us nearly died! And then Bilbo slipped and Uncle had to save him!”

“Was a right ass about it too,” Fili said. “Scolded poor Bilbo into considering leaving us. If I’d have known at the time I’d have smacked him.”

“Poor Bilbo,” Kili sighed. “Uncle’s just stupid like that sometimes.”

“Rather often, now that I think about it.”

“Poor sod.”

“It’s tragic, really.”

“So Thorin…insulted Bilbo,” Frodo said as the princes continued trying to pinpoint exactly how much of an idiot Thorin was.

“Yes,” Kili and Fili answered.

“And then the Gollum thing happened and he met up with you all outside,” Frodo added.

“Ah yes,” Fili said, looking displeased. “We actually don’t know much about Gollum. Bilbo never mentioned him, you see.”

“Unlce and I were quite confused at Fili yelling about if after reading that part,” Kili added. “Bilbo should have said _something_.”

“And then we see that _thing_ hanging around our dear cousin!” Fili complained, mustache twitching.

“Fee was yelling at you for bringing him along, you know. Screaming about ‘didn’t you read that book’ and such,” Kili added.

“…I’m sorry I didn’t hear you?” Frodo offered.

“No, no, it ended up being good you brought him, after all,” Fili sighed. “Still. Wish you didn’t need to…”

“Anyway, then Azog tried to kill Uncle!” Kili said.

“It was quite terrifying,” Fili said. “But Bilbo saved him.”

“I remember that part,” Frodo said. “You were all in burning trees, right?”

“Well yes, but this is where things started getting left out. See, Uncle was rather, well, smitten by the whole lifesaving thing,” Fili said.

“Wouldn’t stop staring at poor Bilbo, who thought he’d done something wrong,” Kili said.

“Good thing we noticed.”

“We’re amazing like that.’

“We are indeed,” Fili agreed.

“All right, now I’m getting curious. What did you do?” Frodo asked.

“Locked them in a room together at Beorn’s!” Kili said.

“The sheep helped,” Fili said. “They were quite tricky creatures, really. Wish we could have brought some along.”

“I think they might have been able to outsmart the elves for us,” Kili agreed.

“Anyway, Uncle wanted our hides,” Fili explained. “But dear Bilbo was much more reasonable.”

“He only made us give up dessert.”

“Said if we were going to act like faunts he’d treat us like it.”

“He was fun like that,” Kili sighed happily. “But at least they weren’t acting like total idiots around each other.”

“Just slight idiots. Much better,” Fili agreed. “And then we got captured by elves in Mirkwood!”

“Legolas really pulled a stick out his arse before your quest, let me tell you. Blondie was a right prick back then,” Kili huffed.

“What?” Frodo squawked. “ _Legolas_?”

“Quite the temper, too,” Kili added. “Did _not_ like my flirting with Tauriel, or that she quite liked it.”

“Kili, this is about Thorin and Bilbo, not you and your lass,” Fili said.

Frodo ignored them as they briefly resumed bickering, too caught up in the idea of Legolas as rude. Or jealous. Or temperamental. He wasn’t quite managing.

“And then Bilbo saved us again and _wow_ was Uncle head over heels by then,” Kili sighed, getting back on track at last. His nose wrinkled. “There was kissing in Laketown. I didn’t like it.”

“Quite traumatic for a young dwarf indeed,” Fili agreed.

“Kissing?” Frodo asked skeptically.

“The way to Uncle’s heart was saving his hide multiple times. Who knew?” Kili laughed.

“All right then. So according to you…our uncles are…involved,” Frodo said.

“Yes, we’ve been saying that for several minutes now,” Fili said.

“All right then. So…what about the…the um…” Frodo really couldn’t bring himself to ask.

“The what?” Kili asked.

“The thing with the…the erm…I don’t mean to pry but the… _incident_?” Frodo asked back, hoping that was all the specificity they needed.

Going by their expressions, it was.

“Oh. That,” Fili said. Both princes shifted uncomfortably. “I…we all messed up. Uncle most of all but…Kili or I should have done something. We…we all messed up.”

“So the book was mostly right on that one?”

“Yes,” Fili agreed. “In fact I think Bilbo was a bit too kind to everyone who wasn’t Uncle, really, one of us should have said something-”

“Especially me,” Kili said. “I mean, I knew Uncle was in the wrong but…he was my uncle. He’s like my da, too, in a lot of ways. So I was pretty much just a coward.”

“Unlike Uncle, we didn’t know Bilbo forgave us when we died,” Fili added grimly. “Took him awhile to convince us that if he was forgiven it was all-but assured we were too.”

“I know he forgave you. I could tell from the book,” Frodo said gently.

“Yeah. I was reading one of the early drafts when I realized Bilbo forgave us. Course Kili took some convincing, since he wouldn’t read it himself-”

“I wasn’t going to hang around someone’s shoulder to read a book, that’s just creepy!” Kili complained. “Really, Frodo, Fili was in that room whenever Bilbo was writing. It was weird!”

“I don’t tell you what to do with your afterlife!” Fili grumbled.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded. I think he really missed you all,” Frodo said. “So…you two saw the whole quest?”

“Lots of it. We traded off—one of us had to keep an eye on Gimli when Oin wasn’t doing it, after all, to get the full story,” Fili said. “Uncle even watched with us at the end.”

Frodo frowned, struck by a thought, “What does your uncle think of me, anyway?”

“Well, he didn’t really have an opinion on your for a good long while,” Kili admitted.

“Other than that it was good you and your friends were helping Bilbo move on,” Fili said.

“But when you started the quest he was worried for you.”

“And we was very proud that you got through Mordor.”

“So we say he likes you,” the both concluded.

“Well…what is there to do here?” Frodo asked. “Other than talk?”

“Is our company not enough, dear cousin?” Kili teased.

“This is sort of a waiting room, if you will. Lets the recently passed, or in your cases recently crossed the sea, get their bearings,” Fili said. “I think the men’s afterlife is, oh, that way. Vaguely. Like we said, Undying Lands are more west. Halls are over there.”

Frodo’s gaze followed Fili’s last gesture, and sure enough he could only just see what looked like mountains. “Is that where our uncles are?”

“Nah, like we said, they’re just off snogging. Should be somewhere around here if we bother looking—which we will not,” Kili said firmly.

“So will they find us?” Frodo asked.

“I’m sure they will, if we keep being our charmingly loud selves,” Fili said. “So what was it like sailing here? We couldn’t see you two anymore and got a bit worried.”

“It was…long,” Frodo said, his brow furrowing. “Rather boring, really. Felt like an age of just being on a boat with nothing but water everywhere.”

“Sounds dreadful!” Kili cried, tugging Frodo into his lap for a hug.

“Kili, it’s my turn!” Fili huffed before snagging them both in his own embrace.

“You two do this a lot, then?” Frodo asked.

“Yes,” the brothers confessed.

Frodo chuckled before coming out with a loud fit of laughter. This naturally got Kili and Fili laughing as well.

.o.o.o.

The excessive noise had needed investigation, and so the dwarf and hobbit had pulled away from each other at last and headed up to the top of the hill.

“Oh, Fili and Kili found Frodo,” Bilbo said idly, leaning against Thorin.

“…I am not sure if that is good or bad.”

“They are laughing, Thorin. _Frodo_ is _laughing_ for the first time since that quest of his. It’s good,” Bilbo said firmly.

“Yes, ghivashel,” Thorin chuckled. “Though I have to wonder over what they are laughing quite so much…”

“I’m sure we’ll hear all about it,” Bilbo said. “Come on, we’d better round up the nephews before dinner.”

“How do you know if it’s time dinner?” Thorin had been in the plains for years and they were essentially unchanging.

“I’m a hobbit. We always know when it’s time for dinner.”

“Ah, of course, how could I forget?”

“…There is a way to get food, here right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Had me worried.”


End file.
